Interview with Founder
__NOEDITSECTION__ The interviewer is Efe Karacar. He also interviewed some other renowned personalities from the Warband modding community, along saxondragon: Interview Efe: Hello, Saxondragon. You are a legendary modder of many years and the creator of one of the most popular warband mod, Prophesy of Pendor. So, lets start with an introduction of yourself for those who don’t know you. saxondragon: Hello Efe, thank you for the interview. My real name is Jim Landes and I am a game designer. Currently I teach digital game development at a college in the United States and also I am a founder of a small development group Gwythdarian where we are in the process of creating our first web based offering. I started in the business many years ago in the early 1980’s when the industry was fledgling and I have been involved with maybe a half a dozen companies since. Efe: How did you get started on modding this sequel for the first time? Did you have any past experiences? Why did you want to mod this game? saxondragon: The short answer this many pronged question is that I wanted to return to entertainment software after a very long hiatus. In 1993 I sold my Play-by-mail game company (think of MMO’s before the internet), returned to the university for a few years, then subsequently worked in Business to Business software for over 10 years. I wanted to return to my roots so to speak and needed to demonstrate that I still had relevant skills in this field. I chose Prophesy of Pendor and Taleworlds Mount&Blade and subsequently Warband to be the vehicle that would ultimately enable a career change. Efe: So, Pendor. What was your drive behind while creating this world? How could you create such a diverse and an in-depth world, that is loved by so many people? Did you start on world-building before actual production began? saxondragon: Thank you for that compliment. Pendor was created on the fly in November through December in 2008, then finalized through June 2009. Most elements were from past personal role-playing worlds I had created, some of it was influenced by authors such as Roger Zelazny, Michael Moorcock, Robert Jordan, and Joel Rosenburg to name a few. Other elements were derived from discussions on quantum mechanics and some elements were sparked from the open source artwork available at the time. As more team members with varied degrees of experience came on board, they helped breathe life into areas such as the D’Shar and made them more real. I should also point out that one writer, whom you know here on the forums as M0rdred, was especially adept at taking over arching story concepts and filling them in with fascinating and detailed history. Mason Purcell aka Fawzia dokhtar-i-sanjar, was also a key member who’s unparalleled knowledge of history and culture played a significant role in the world development at this time. World building is about laying out an overarching concept, preferably one that has a premise that is intellectually engaging. Then filling in the details and the struggles, aspirations, hopes and fears of those that live in the world and conveying their limited, flawed and often biased worldview. This makes the world, and the characters living in it, seem real. Efe: What was it like working on Pendor? What was your main role? How was the team atmosphere like? Did you face too many challenges? saxondragon: It started with just myself and a proof of concept in late 2008. From there I gave myself 6 months to work on a 2.0 release to implement as many features as I could. Up to this point I had rarely worked in such a distributed development environment much less with all part-time unpaid volunteers and most of whom you did not know, except for a user name. To further complicate matters, most of those were working in a non-native language, which posed additional communication and collaboration issues. From a leadership perspective this became a challenge. I was surprised that so many individuals answered the call I put out for help. I was hoping for three or four people, but over the years, scores of folks stepped up to help out to one degree to another. We have over 240 people registered on our development forum today. What I quickly learned was the vast majority of folks who play games do not have the fortitude to create them. For every 6 people who joined the development team, only 1 would produce something and maybe one out of 30 would become what I would term a “core member” and continue with the project. Some would come and go as their life situations changed. The model that emerged from this experience was the main coder, or “Implementer” was the center of the development effort who also served as a producer who organized others to get specific tasks completed which they had passion around. The main challenge, which is true for any development efforts, is the effort is limited by the skills of the people who are attached to the project. Efe: Was world of Pendor meant only for a warband mod? Or, did you create this world with thoughts-in-mind like turning this into a sequel or a brand of some sort, like Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings? saxondragon: It was created just for Mount&Blade/Warband. However, the popularity has inspired the possibility of a novel and I am investigating subsequent entertainment offerings around this intellectual property. Efe: Since I know you are mainly affiliated with your own company, Gwythdarian. Is this something that long-existed before you started modding or after? saxondragon: Gwythdarian was launched after the release of POP and within two years of having relocated to Michigan. Efe: Do you think your modding experience influenced you in any way? Maybe, your professional career or your studies? Was it purely a hobby for you? saxondragon: The answer to the first part of this question is a resounding yes. What impressed me the most was that a team of people, who never met, came together and created such an amazing piece of work over a period of years. This taught me that a virtual company, working with volunteers was possible. It is a model I have incorporated into the first offering of Gwythdarian. A methodology where we break the traditional client-artist relationship so that the creative vision can be fully realized and that the people who put the work into a project reaps the majority of the rewards for the success of the project. I have been involved in several startups and young companies where the client who holds the purse strings manages to destroy the project by demanding changes that they do not understand. Many existing games have fallen victim to this sort of behavior and the results are always disastrous. The other salient piece that bubbled up in this process of making Prophesy of Pendor, was the realization that modding was not sustainable. Like making games or playing them, this is not done in a vacuum. We all have to work to put food on the table, pay mortgages and save for our retirements. Very few people are in a financial position that will enable them to put thousands of hours into projects indefinitely. Most will do so for a specific reason, such as building a portfolio to get a job, and over a specific period of time. After that period, they will move into professional jobs that take up all of their time. We all have problems to solve in real life, and it takes most of our effort to address them. The only way to make modding scalable and sustainable is to find a way to compensate the modder for their time. This is why great modders enter the scene, then leave, most never to return. I worked on a project for a few years that solved this problem in an elegant way but we were never able to fund the project and it was shelved. Efe: Are you working on any project at the moment? A warband mod, indie game or maybe a glorious return to Bannerlord with something completely new? saxondragon: Yes, all of my spare time is taken up with a development effort through Gwythdarian. We are working on a web based persistent interstellar odyssey called StariumXCV. I wish to be mindful of Taleworlds so I, with respect and deference, will not go deeper into this effort here. Efe: What is your favourite warband mod? Why do you like it? Also, is there any project that caught your attention lately? saxondragon: Prophesy of Pendor honestly. I have played many others, but they just do not hold my attention for long. Mostly I play to gain insights into unique features and understand what I like and do not like to build a more robust body of knowledge for future designs. Efe: What is your overall impression of the modding community of this game? saxondragon: There are many amazingly talented people here and the possible potential is astounding. I have found the modding community to be helpful and by and large promoted by people who want to create the best possible offerings. Efe: And - lastly. Would you like to say anything to creative people who’re reading this interview at the moment? saxondragon: So much to say, so little time and space. I will limit myself to 6 points. First,: Just do it. If you want to utilize your skills, then offer to help an existing team. Be persistent. Get stuff done. Focus on execution. Facilitate the success of the modding team lead. Be open to change, and especially as an artist and writer, your work will change... always. Second: Check your ego at the door. Realize that at any given moment an idea or thought you may have, is not who you are. If an idea is rejected, then it is the idea or concept that is rejected, not you. You have more value than a million ideas. Do not shut down or feel resentment if your concept is modified, or rejected. Keep your eye on the ending release, and what you can do to make it better. Third: No one has all of the answers. Feel content if you even know what questions to ask. Every single time I have had an amazing concept I throw it out to my team and they make it better. Not a few times, not sometimes, but every-single-time. What goes with this process is to listen to your team and what they say and understand why they are taking a particular position. Listening is a primary skill here. Fourth: How to make great games. This is a bit outside the scope of the question, but the key can be summed into a few short sentences. You are creating an experience that your players will consume as they eat a meal. Remember always that your players consume your content. There is the early game (appetizer), mid game (main course) and end game (desert). You must design for all three phases of play. The most helpful key in design is to create never ending relevant unanswered questions for your player. Systems that interact in interesting ways will add longevity and popularity to your offering. What Taleworlds have done is to provide a solid platform to build upon and with the OSP resources, there is almost infinite possibilities. Fifth: Be mindful of the Return of Investment (ROI) of your time. Do not spend 100 hours on a design that will give a player 3 minutes of “consumption”. Always ask “What is the return for my time spent? What will the player experience? Is it worth the effort?” Lastly: Ideas have no value until there is work put into them. Having a “Great Idea” is nice but to be brutally honest, you have to be able to execute on that idea in order for it to be taken seriously. See the first point: Get stuff done.